After three periods of the NCAA Division III 285 pound wrestling championship, Augustana’s Adarios Jones was locked in a 7-7 tie against Lycoming’s Garrett Wesneski. It came down to a one minute sudden victory period where Jones was taken down to lose the match 9-7 on Saturday, March 9.

For Jones, it was difficult to first grasp what happened at the national championship in Roanoke, Virginia.
“It’s still all kind of a huge daze to me. I’m not trying to sound cliché, but it’s coming back in chunks. I think when something hurts that bad it’s kind of hard to think about,” Jones said.
The title match started out with an eventful first period. Jones started the scoring with a take down to go up 2-0. Wesneski escaped and then landed a takedown to go up 3-2. Jones then received a penalty for fleeing the mat to make the score 4-2. In the closing seconds of the first, Jones hit an escape to make the score 4-3.
The second period started out with a Jones take down to make it 5-4, and later on Wesneski got an escape to tie the match at the end of the second period.
After starting the down position, Wesneski escaped to go up by one before Jones hit a takedown. Inside of the last minute, Wesneski escaped to make the score 7-7 and take the match to sudden victory.
“Going into sudden victory, I put my foot on the line and I felt good. It is very rare for me to lose in overtime. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of the last time it happened. Maybe once in high school. I like to think I excel when the pressure is on. It just so happened that he got off a shot that was really nice. It sucks I was ready to scrap, and unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way,” Jones said.
Jones placed second in the nation at the 285 pound weight class and was the highest finisher Augustana has had on the national level since 1995. Jones finished the season with a 27-1 record which was good enough for fourth all-time record on Augustana’s single season winning percentage list.
After missing last year’s national tournament with an injury, Jones took the national stage by storm by dominating his way to the title match. Jones racked up victories by scores of 20-8, 3-1, and 14-2 before falling 9-7 in the title match.
“This season I had kind of a chip on my shoulder. A lot of people, they kind of forgot about me. You had the two guys that wrestled for the national title last year, I majored them both my freshman year. When talk started this year about who would win the title, my name wasn’t really being thrown around. I’m not going to say that it stung, but it made me a little chippy,” said Jones.
Jones, who just completed his junior season, was one of the few bright spots on the Augustana team this season. The Vikings struggled after being hit hard with injuries.
The Vikings finished 1-10 in dual meets this season and finished seventh in the CCIW. After Jones, the Vikings were also led by Danny Terronez (26-14), Freddy Terranova (18-12), Travis Pulse (18-12), Dale Charlier (15-14).
Sophomore Danny Terronez details part of the reason that Jones has been successful week in and week out.
“It’s his mindset; he finds ways to win. The older you get you start to realize that the best competitiors are the ones that know they will find ways to win, and he is really good at that and has done it all year,” said Terronez.